


No salvation for a bad girl

by heavenisalibrary



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fills [25]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Human AU, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 14:05:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3813334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/pseuds/heavenisalibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Listen, Benny — can I call you Benny? No? Officer Benny, then, or… no, not that either, let’s just, well, anyway, I didn’t get into a bar fight! It wasn’t a fight! I was walking across the room and there must’ve been a tree branch or a trip wire or possibly someone’s foot, and suddenly I was head over heels — not euphemistically, I mean literally, my heels went over my head, it was very alarming, let me tell you, Be — Officer, and that man just happened to be in front of me and suddenly there were fisticuffs, and honestly, look at me! I couldn’t possibly have started a bar fight!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	No salvation for a bad girl

**Author's Note:**

> sort of stole this AU prompt but forgot what it was meant to be and changed it idk. AU was “we both got in separate bar fights downtown and now we’re waiting in the ER comparing stories” but they just ended up in jail instead w/e

If she’d had any idea at all that she’d end up spending New Year’s Eve in jail instead of at a rooftop party in Manhattan, she would’ve stopped herself from getting that fight. Or at least done a better job of running from the cops — or maybe she could’ve just not teased them about the powdered sugar on their uniforms. But it was  _so_  cliche, she thought. She simply couldn’t resist. Never could — always was her problem.

She suspected that was just about the reason she’d thrown that punch in the first place. Why men felt like they had any right to grab her from behind while she was on the dance floor was a complete mystery. There she was, dancing with a couple of friends, when suddenly some drunken oaf had sidled up behind her, slid his grimy hands onto her hips, his stale, yeasty breath on her neck… what else was a girl to do but elbow him, and _hard_? She maybe shouldn’t have then turned around to punch him. And kneeing him in the groin was maybe a bit excessive, and then kicking him to the ground, well. That had mostly just been for kicks, pardon the pun, and she felt pretty good about the whole thing, truth be told, but now she was in this jail cell and there would be at least ten minutes — maybe a bit less — until she could even think about escaping, but by the time she did, the New Year would’ve happened.

River sighed, slumping where she sat against the wall, tapping her foot against the floor. She’d definitely made an error in calculating this whole evening. The footsteps that echoed down the hallway accompanied by the indiscernible words of someone babbling continuously was a bit of a balm, though — at least she wouldn’t have to spend the turning of the New Year alone. The man who appeared, dragged by the collar of his shirt by the officer, was the last sort of fellow she ever expected to see in jail. He was wearing a tweed blazer, a button-up, and a ridiculous bow tie — he had the face of a child, but dressed like an old man, and she sat up, watching him with interest as he prattled on to the officer.

“Listen, Benny — can I call you Benny? No? Officer Benny, then, or… no, not that either, let’s just, well, anyway, I didn’t get into a bar fight! It wasn’t a fight! I was walking across the room and there must’ve been a tree branch or a trip wire or possibly someone’s foot, and suddenly I was head over heels — not euphemistically, I mean literally, my heels went over my head, it was  _very_  alarming, let me tell you, Be — Officer, and that man just  _happened_  to be in front of me and suddenly there were fisticuffs, and honestly,  _look_  at me! I couldn’t  _possibly_  have started a bar fight!”

“He’s got you there, Benny,” River said from where she sat. The man in the bow tie looked at her sharply, and she raised a brow at him. He had a sort of sharpness about him that made her tingle all over. “Certainly too young to even be in a bar.”

“Excuse me!” the man in the bow tie shouted, awkwardly loud in the quiet space. The Officer simply rolled his eyes, still holding onto the man’s collar, and unlocked the cell with his other hand. River briefly thought about pushing past them and leaving, but… she had to at least know what possessed him to wear the bow tie. “I’m older than I look.”

“Which means you’re maybe almost twenty, then?”

“Oi,” he said as the Officer shoved him in the cell. He wagged his finger at River, which made her brows raise even further. “I’m thirty-one, if you must know.”

“Rubbish,” she said.

“I am!” he said. “I’d show you my license, but our good friend Ben here took it from me when he arrested me for  _tripping_!”

“Can’t be a day over nineteen,” River said, settling back against the wall, crossing her legs where she sat on the bench. The man in the bow tie gripped to the bars of the cell for a moment, watching the Officer disappear with a forlorn expression before he wheeled around, spinning in a ridiculously flamboyant way as he approached her.

“Alright then, how old are you?”

“That’s a bit rude,” she said.

“Oh, are you Miss Manners now?”

She snorted. “Yes. Now curtsy.”

“Curtsy — !?”

She threw her head back and laughed at the shade of pink he turned. He tugged a hand through his ridiculous hair, frowning at her.

“You’re going to be dreadful company, I can tell. Why’d they lock you up, hm?” He stepped nearer to her — normally, she didn’t like people in her personal space, if tonight wasn’t evidence enough, but she let him approach, hardly blinking as he bent over so that he was face to face with her and reached out to tug at a curl. “Did you get a ticket for having too much hair?”

She rolled her eyes. “First degree murder.” He jumped back as if she’d burned him.

“You’re lying!”

“Am I?” she said.

“Well, I don’t know you, do I? How would I know?”

She smiled, rolling to her feet so that they were chest to chest, and he looked down at her for a split second, and then  _down_  to the low cut of her dress, and then back up, and off of her smirk he nearly jumped away from her, his arms pinwheeling comically in a way that left no great mystery as to how he’d gotten into this mess in the first place.

“River Song,” she said, extending her hand for a shake. He eyed her warily for a moment before stepping back toward her and shaking her hand.

“The Doctor.”

“Doctor who?” she said.

He just giggled, clapping his other hand over hers where he held it and closing the space between them again until their clasped hands were nearly pressed between them. He didn’t seem to quite understand personal space, anyway, but River didn’t bother to point it out to them.

“River Song,” he said, “brilliant name, that.”

“Picked it myself,” she said.

“Did you now,” he said, “running from the law?”

“Something like that,” she said.

“Ooh,” he said, “love a bad girl, me.”

She realized abruptly that the lack of personal space had suddenly become a lack of almost  _any_  space. His face was so near hers that she could see the fine lines of his face now that proved he was as old as he said, and his breath smelled like sweet mint.

“Sweetie,” she said, “you couldn’t handle a bad girl. Least of all me.”

“You’d be surprised, River Song,” he said, and she couldn’t help the warmth that trip-hopped up her spine with the way he said her name like it was all one word, “I got arrested for starting a bar fight.”

“You’re bad to the bone,” she said.

He waggled his brows ridiculously, and she laughed again, the tension between them fizzling enough that she was able to pry her hand from his and step away. He was bumbling and flamboyant and ridiculous, but he certainly had a certain charm about him. Not her usual type —  _definitely_  not — but she had the sort of insane impulse to just eat him up.

“Horrid way to spend a New Years,” he said, flopping onto the bench she’d been sitting on, limbs all flung at odd angles that made him look like a puppy, “in jail.”

River hummed, turning away from him and heading toward the doors. The phone was ringing — if the Officer answered it, she’d certainly have enough noise cover to finagle the lock open and get into the conference room across the hallway, and then out the window. It’d have to be quick, though. And she needed the phone call to last. She began to reach down the front of her chest when the Doctor gave a great yelp, and when she looked at him in surprised, he had a hand clapped over his eyes.

“What are you  _doing_?”

“I thought you were — what are you — are you  _stripping_?”

“You thought I’d just start taking my clothes off because…?”

“I don’t know!” he said. “You’re clearly mad anyway! Just look at your hair. And why _are_  you here, anyway?”

River rolled her eyes, but decided to let him keep his eyes covered as she fished out the small lock-picking kit she always kept on her person. Setting to work, she sighed.

“I got in a bar fight too.”

“Accident?”

“I elbowed a man in the gut, broke his nose, kneed him in the groin, and then kicked him. But only a very little bit.”

The Doctor was silent for a beat.

“What’d he do?”

“Grabbed me from behind on the dance floor.”

Another beat, and then, “serves him right.”

She smiled to herself as she got the last bit of the lock undone with a nearly inaudible click — clearly, though, it was enough for the Doctor to hear, because suddenly she heard his absurdly clomping footsteps against the concrete ground, and then he was peering over her shoulder as she tucked away her lock-picking kit and started to open the door.

“ _What are you doing?!_ ”

“Getting out of here,” River said, spinning around to face him. “Coming?”

“Certainly not!” he said. River grabbed his arm and looked at his wristwatch.

“Five seconds,” she said.

“Five seconds ’til…?”

“Four.”

“River, you can’t just break out of —“

“Three.”

“— prison, there are  _laws_  —“

“Two.”

“— you already had to change your name, God knows what —“

“One,” she said, and as she pushed the door open behind her, she reached up and grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him to her for a searing kiss. She didn’t believe in love at first sight, or soul mates, or any other such quixotic nonsense, but the moment he sighed into her mouth, his whole body relaxing into her as he stutter-stepped toward her, cupping her face in his hands, she felt like something in her heart twisted into place, like the pegs of a lock all giving at just the right moment. She pulled away quickly, because time was of the essence, but she couldn’t help but stare a bit stupidly at him, and he at her, for a half a second.

“Happy New Years, sweetie,” she whispered.

“The happiest ever,” he said. “You kissed me. And you broke out of jail.”

“And that’s all in ten minutes or less,” River said, “want to see what I can do with a whole evening?”

“More than anything else in the universe,” he said.

She grinned, letting her hand slip into his as she led him across the hall and to the room with the window that would set them free.

“Geronimo,” he said.

Suddenly, her New Year was looking up.


End file.
